Man convicted of kidnapping charge

A 36-year-old man has accepted a plea deal in a kidnapping case.

In Flathead District Court on Thursday, Thomas Mulligan entered an Alford plea to the  kidnapping charge. In an Alford plea, the defendant does not admit guilt but accepts a plea deal and accompanying conviction.

Mulligan arrested in December 2010 after Kalispell Police Department SWAT officers stormed the Super 8 Motel where Mulligan had barricaded himself with a 17-year-old boy.

Through the deal, Mulligan faces 10 years in Montana State Prison, although if sentenced to the full 10 years he would be eligible for parole within 2 1/2 years. With the one year he will have spent in jail by the time he is sentenced, that would leave just 1 1/2 years until he became eligible.

When that information was shared with him, however, he immediately responded.

“I won’t make parole,” Mulligan said. “You have to be an asset to society to make parole.”

Mulligan has been held in the Flathead County Detention Center for 10 months, all of which has been spent in solitary confinement.

In exchange for Mulligan taking the plea agreement, a charge of criminal endangerment was dropped.

Additionally, prosecutors in Twin Falls County, Idaho, and federal attorneys in Boise, Idaho, agreed not to pursue their own charges against Mulligan.

The lack of any future charges was significant to Mulligan, who has in the past openly worried in letters to Stadler that if he were to be incarcerated in a federal jail he would be tortured and killed. Those comments led to a psychological evaluation, which determined he was competent.

Mulligan would have faced significantly more jail time in the Idaho case.

Sentencing was set for 9 a.m. on Dec. 29 or as soon as a pre-sentence investigation report has been completed.

Reporter Jesse Davis may be reached at 758-4441 or by email at jdavis@dailyinterlake.com.